Being in the Plaindealer staff box that appears at the bottom of this page most every week has felt a little lonely this year.

For more than five months, the only names you’ve seen there are ours and Kate Jones, our advertising representative.

This week, we’re thrilled to add a fourth name to our team.

Lia Salvatierra has joined us as a reporter through the national nonprofi t Report for America program and will cover local government. Her first byline appears in this week’s edition.

Lia graduated in May from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, with a bachelor’s degree in media and journalism, and a bachelor’s in global studies. Her hometown is Palo Alto, California.

Last summer, she lived in Lander, Wyoming, while completing an internship at the nonprofit news outlet WyoFile, so she knows a little something about reporting in small, rural areas. And she’s already an award-winning reporter – she was named a Hearst National Champion after earning second place in the writing competition in June.

We’ll let her tell you more about herself in an upcoming column.

This is our fifth year as a member of Report for America. Of the roughly 175 journalists placed in newsrooms across the country this year, only two are located in Colorado. The Plaindealer continues to be the smallest media outlet hosting a Report for America journalist, and has been fortunate to be part of the program to help serve the community and keep you informed.

Since purchasing the Plaindealer five years ago, we’ve made the commitment to you to fulfill our mantra: Even small places — especially small places — deserve quality journalism. Report for America has assisted us with that mission, covering a portion of our reporter’s salary while ensuring every dollar donated by you, our readers, comes directly to the Plaindealer to support the position. Report for America’s goal is to place journalists in local newsrooms to report on under-covered issues and communities. They are well aware that without the weekly Plaindealer, this place we love would be a news desert, devoid of a reliable, trustworthy source of local journalism.

With Report for America’s help, we have worked hard to provide you with meaningful, in-depth reporting on issues that directly impact Ouray County. Most of you know that previously, Liz Teitz spent three years covering the pandemic and affordable housing and related socioeconomic issues. Now, Lia will dive into local government, attending meetings, identifying trends, tracking how public money is spent and helping you understand how public officials’ and elected leaders’ decisions affect you.

So, why cover local government? Why does it matter?

There are a lot of public entities here. Between one county, a city, a town, two school districts, two library districts, three fire districts and a host of other small, special taxing districts, there are a lot of administrators, board members and elected officials making decisions that impact everything from public safety and local roads to health care and schools. It would be incredibly difficult for any citizen to attend every meeting and spend their spare time reading agendas, minutes and other public documents. We know you have lives and other priorities, and we try our best to keep our eye on important issues and write about them each week. If you aren’t informed, you can’t participate.

Local newspapers serve many purposes – to inform and connect, but also to hold those in power accountable. Our job is to keep tabs, monitor and report on government activities and hold public servants accountable. With more money flowing into this community than ever before and budgets rising with that tide, that responsibility becomes especially important.

Research shows that communities with vigorous local news organizations have lower taxes, less extreme partisanship and more citizen engagement. In contrast, communities without local news sources tend to have lower voter engagement and social cohesion, pay higher taxes and have fewer candidates running for office. Without a local watchdog, corruption is more likely, it’s hard for the community to know what’s going on, and even finding information about those who are running for office becomes difficult, so voters are uninformed.

With Report for America’s help, we are able to bring Ouray County a journalist dedicated to boosting our local reporting and keeping coverage of the community robust. This year, the program is funding 25% of Lia’s salary, and we’re charged with fundraising the rest.

If you’re interested in learning more about Report for America, feel free to email us. We’re happy to provide more information and answer any questions. We plan on hosting some meet-and-greet sessions with Lia in the future, so stay tuned.

While introducing you to Lia, we also want to take a moment to recognize Deb Hurley Brobst, a longtime Colorado journalist who has done an admirable job covering local government and other issues over the last several months. Deb is a veteran journalist who retired in December after 43 years as an editor and reporter, most recently from the Canyon Courier and the Clear Creek Courant. Deb came out of retirement to help us continue to serve you. We owe her an enormous debt of gratitude. It’s no exaggeration to say that without her, we would not have been able to put out a quality newspaper each week, especially as Erin continues to recover from a broken ankle. We hope to continue featuring Deb’s work in the paper, depending on her availability.

Thank you, Deb, for covering stories so well from afar that many don’t realize you haven’t ever visited Ouray County.

And thank you, readers, for supporting local news.

Mike Wiggins and Erin McIntyre are the publishers of the Plaindealer. Email them at mike@ouraynews.com and erin@ouraynews.com.